Walgreen's Drive Thru - a toy with that medicine

Yesterday I had both boys with me in the car and it was the end of a long day of work, doctors, swimming and running around. Dave was at school and I needed to fill a prescription for Turner, turns out he has a double ear infection. So not wanting to get out of the car and take the boys into Target our pharmacy of choice, I decided to do the Walgreen’s drive thru. The pharmacy people use a phone handset to talk to you through the glass. Hayden was quite fascinated with this and kept asking me questions about who I was talking to and how it worked. He stopped asking questions and got real quite and then came out with my favorite line for the day, “Mom, can you ask her if she can get me a toy from the store.” It was such as sweet and innocent questions and just made me laugh. It also made me realize he is a tad bit on the spoiled side when he thinks he needs a toy from the store even when we don’t go inside.

Happy Side Note

I love Dr. Pepper. It just makes me happy and sometimes makes all my woes go away. I love Dr. Pepper and I'm sure heaven has a soda foutain with Dr. Pepper.

Negative People

Negative people drive me nuts. I’m okay with being down once in awhile and a little complaining is normal. But out and out right negativity I just can’t handle. I say this because of a person I work with. I have worked with this individual for about five years now. For the most part as Special Agents we work fairly independently on our own cases and occasionally get assistance from the support staff or other agents as needed. I’ve always known this individual had a negative streak, but in my current position I have had the opportunity to see just how deep and wide this streak is. For the last several months I have been the Acting Supervisory Special Agent in my office while they are trying to find a permanent person for the job. The opportunity has allowed me to expand my horizons and see if management is right for me. As such I have been working with this individual not as a contemporary, but as a boss.

There is a phrase I like to use with Dave to help him keep an open mind about things when he gets on a negative kick and can’t see any way to overcome a situation. It goes something like, “Why don’t you just slam that door shut,” meaning your right it is hopeless lets not even try. It is my sarcastic way of getting him to look at other options and see that just because one door closes doesn’t mean there isn’t another opportunity (door or even window) he can choose.

I have heard in the past about how management has tried to extend a hand to help this negative individual advance their career, only to throw their hands up in the air in frustration. I thought I would be able to get through to them because of prior dealings we've had with each other, so the other day I had to have what is called a Workload review with this negative person and when it was done, I just wanted to cry. Despite the smile on their face every word that came out of this persons mouth was nothing but negative and every action or suggestions was taken as a personal affront. It was so draining. I just can’t even imagine how this person functions in daily life being so negative. Not only do they slam shut any door of opportunity; they are dead bolting it and throwing away the key.

So I guess the lesson to learn is how not to be and that not everything is a personal affront. And most of the time the hand that is reaching out is not there to slap you down but to lift you up so be careful before you take a bite out of it. And as for this hand it won’t be extended in their direction again.

Televisions - A love hate thing.

I've been thinking about the television a lot lately. Probably because it seems to be on at my house all the time, I go to sleep with the TV on and I wake up with the TV on. Sometimes all three of our TV's are on at the same time even when no one is watching them. I'm not necessarily proud of this fact. It's not that I love the TV so much, I actually am ambivalent towards the TV. When I am cleaning the house (I know a rarity) I prefer either the radio or nothing. I do enjoy the occasional television show and now that we have the AT&T U verse and can record up to four shows at one time, I watch way more TV than I otherwise would. I don’t actually ever watch anything when it is being broadcast, everything I watch has been recorded so I can watch it when I want and fast forward through the commercials.

But my problem comes in with my sweet husband. See as a child he wasn’t allowed to watch the TV so now as an adult I think he is trying to make up for this deprivation in his early years. So as I said he likes to watch before he goes to bed and once he steps out of the shower the TV comes on. I try not to harp to much, but there does come a point when I have to say enough is enough, especially when it is effecting my piece of mind. Dave does recognize that sometimes the TV is to much for me to handle with everything else going on and he will turn it off. But sometimes I feel like I am competing with the TV for his attention. This bothers me.

We have several shows we watch together like the CSI’s, Criminal Minds, NCIS’s, Castle, Cold Case, Three Rivers, Trauma, White Collar and Lie to Me to name a few. Then Dave has his shows from either the Food Network or the Syfy channel. And I have mine Gossip Girl, Glee, Survivor, The Amazing Race, Grey’s Anatomy, The Good Wife, Ace of Cakes, 18 Kids and Counting, The Cake Boss and Nip/Tuck. Nip/Tuck is one I just can’t stop watching because the people are so dysfunctional and it is so far outside the realm of my life and my values it scares and fascinates me.
Anyway there are a couple of shows I have asked Dave not to ever have on in our home just because I really don’t like them. These include off the top of my head Family Guy, American Dad and Married with Children. I just find nothing redeeming about these shows, and not only that I feel they detract from the home environment.

I honestly believe if it wasn’t for Dave I wouldn’t have cable (satellite) television. I’m thinking it might not be a bad idea to get rid of it, but I don’t want to deprive Dave any more than he already has been.

Just my general thoughts.

Halloween

So Halloween has come and gone again. This is the first year Hayden picked out his costume all by himself, and the first year he has actually gone door to door trick or treating. Watching him go door to door helped me to rediscover one of the true joys of parenthood, being happy because your child is happy. Not that this is something I’ve forgotten, but it sometimes gets lost in the day to day grind. Hayden liked trick or treating so much each night since Halloween as it begins to get dark he asks if we can go Trick or Treating again. That boy just makes me smile.

His Batman costume has this stiff shell for the chest and abs making them appear sculpted. After purchasing the costume and brining it home, I had Hayden try it on to make sure it would fit. After taking it off, I was folding it up when Hayden came over and tapped the stiff chest and said to me, “Mom this costume has big boobs.” Several minutes later after I finished laughing, I explained to him that they were not “boobs” but “pecks” to show off his big muscles. He was good with that and enjoyed showing everyone his muscles.